“While society will never wholly eliminate such depravity, we should do everything in our power to protect children from harm.”

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt

Two of the major internet search firms on Monday announced that they will attempt to block online search terms that could produce results including child pornography.

On Monday in London, both Google and Microsoft announced tightened measures on blocking searches for child porn and images of child abuse.

"The world's two largest search engine operators, in a rare display of unity, said as many as 100,000 search terms will now fail to produce results and trigger warnings that child abuse imagery is illegal," The Chicago Tribune reported.

The new security measures were announced during a Downing Street summit with the Internet industry and law enforcement agencies. The Independent reported it will take a collaboration between both the United States and the United Kingdom to eradicate the problem.

“While society will never wholly eliminate such depravity, we should do everything in our power to protect children from harm," said Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, writing for the U.K.-based Daily Mail Online. "That’s why Internet companies like Google and Microsoft have been working with law enforcement for years to stop pedophiles sharing illegal pictures on the Web."

And from Microsoft, The Wall Street Journal reported, “If society is to stamp it out, then together we need to tackle the core problems of creation, distribution and consumption.”

The techniques being used by the two Internet search companies include "blocking results from search terms, adding warnings to pages using terms, removing links to pages that feature abusive images and technology that allows videos that have been deemed abusive to be tracked," according to The Wall Street Journal. The majority these techniques have already been implemented, according to The Journal.

But Julia Davidson, professor of criminology and director of research in criminology at Kingston University, told The Journal that she thinks it unlikely that most offenders will be using search engines to find such materials.

"The remainder of child-porn images are traded using peer-to-peer networks or on the so-called 'dark Net' — a part of the Net that uses technology that renders it inaccessible to search engines. Google is working with others, including CEOP, to tackle the problem of peer-to-peer networks, but significant technical issues would need to be overcome," according to the CEOP's analysis.

Popular Comments

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